Comment by jotaen

I think it’s important to acknowledge that peoples’ brains function differently. Only because whiteboard sessions are best for one person to exchange ideas, there may be other ways to do so that work out just equally well. E.g., someone else may rather be confused to deal with made-up pseudo code syntax in an unfamiliar environment, and for them it may work better to explore and discuss ideas while sitting in front of a real IDE.

To me, the crucial question is whether the interview style is subconsciously biased (because the interviewer themselves fails to imagine that there are other ways to produce equivalent results, or is unable to adopt to different approaches), or whether it’s designed deliberately (because the interviewer explicitly wants to optimise and select for a homogenous collaboration style within the designated team).